Hospital inmate on the loose

Went into the hospital on 8/08/08 to be admitted for the mastectomy. The surgery was delayed 1 1/2 hours due to a delay with a patient scheduled before me. They wheeled me into the surgery room at 2:30 p.m. The anesthesiologist announced that he was going to put some 'margarita music' on for me as I was going to be getting a 'margarita cocktail. They must have done something with my IV behind me because that is the last I remembered until I surfaced in the private room they took me to later. I was informed that I didn't get to the room until 6 p.m. and then afterwards the nurse had to nudge me a little to wake me up as I was lying there trying to catch flies. Sigh. I suppose I probably had drool rolling down my face, too.

I was fighting the anesthesia and kept dozing off and then coming back to talk to the family before dozing off on them again. The family decided to leave after a while when they had determined that I was okay, but I obviously wasn't going to be very communicative.

The surgeon stopped in the following morning to let me know that she had gotten the one tumor, that we had just biopsied earlier this week, but the original tumor (that I had thought was a rib head out of alignment) was totally gone - which she thought was freaky. I thought was great as something was obviously working - probably the vitamin D. :) However, she felt that she might not have gotten all of the cancer in the lymph node area and would probably recommend the radiation treatment afterwards. We will know more on that when the pathology report comes back later this week.

I had to deal with a little nausea through the day, but by dinner time I was able to hold my meal down and my stomach was very happy to have some solid food after almost 48 hours! As I was doing better I was able to go home that evening and was able to get a lot more rest without any nurses waking me up to take vital signs. And the first thing I had Paul do this morning was make me some coffee!

I'm feeling fairly pain free unless I move my right arm too far in any direction. I am supposed to do some stretches with my arm, but I figure I should play it fairly easy until my drains slow down a little.

All the best wishes, healing energy and support was much appreciated, and definitely helpful. During times like these you realize what great friends and family you really have.